Mark 1:9-11

 I traveled on the 4^th of July and rented a car. I have been renting cars for 30 years without a problem. I’m a good driver. On a scale of 1-10, I’m a 9. I’m not ready for the Indy 500, but I do well at driving.

 I was at a private home for a party and the driveway curved at the end. I pulled far up into the drive because it was raining hard. And I was tired. And the car had a high trunk so you could not see easily in reverse.

 Now I can feel the tension growing as you see where this is heading. Yes, I backed up slowly as I left the home, desperately trying to see the street in the rain and darkness. I got too far to the side and tangled with a planter on the front lawn. So the next morning, the rental car with less than 5,000 miles on it had a large scrape on one side.

 I felt guilty. Why didn’t I stop and get out to check the driveway before I backed up? What if it had been a child? Does anybody here get feelings of guilt once in a while that seem overwhelming? I must have gone over that scene a hundred times on replay. Why did I pull so far into the driveway? Why did I rent a car that had bad rear vision? Why did my friends have to stick a planter on their lawn?

 Guilt is a big issue of life, both the guilt that we feel for sin and the guilt we oddly feel for sin done to us. And the Christian community has a way to deal with guilt that we almost never use. The metaphor this morning is a clue, so watch the screens and you will get hints of a great scripture that we will be hearing in the moments to come.

And if you have come today with guilt, you know how debilitating this can be. Guilt drains our energy and makes even everyday tasks an Olympic task to complete. My prayer is that we will all leave today feeling that there is less weight off our shoulders and more peace in our hearts. Let’s worship

Dealing with guilt is a painful part of life. Everyone goes around with guilt. We have talked already about exaggerated guilt. We take small details of daily life that were mistakes and turn them into guilt. God is not going to send me to hell for hitting a planter. Why was I up all night that night worrying about it?

There is also victim guilt. Some of us like to take on a victim role. If someone hates us, we feel guilty. If someone is mean to you at church, some of you will feel guilt about that for them. I bet there is someone here who would think – if I hadn’t come to church today, that other person would not have been tempted to be mean so its my fault. Victim guilt. When people get abused as children or in a relationship, they often blame themselves.

But there are other areas of my life that God is concerned about. True guilt. I sometimes think we don’t want to think about the true guilt, so we manufacture this other guilt about hitting planters and accepting the guilt of others so we don’t have to face our own moral failings head on.

But if you are going to find peace that passes understanding in your heart, there comes a day when you have to deal with the guilt. We would reduce the consumption of entertainment, drugs, and food by 50% in this country if people could find peace from guilt.

Of course, we know that the gospel gives the cure for the ills we are discussing. But part of that cure the church ignores and that act of baptism is what this passage of scripture is discussing.

Two books in the Bible refer specifically to Jesus birth, but 6 books refer to Jesus’ baptism. Baptism is much more important in the Scriptures than in the practice of the Christian community. Our sanctuary is too large and our lobby is too small. I would like to see a large baptistry in the front of the church with a spray of water to remind us that we only come into worship through baptism.

Jesus found assurance through his baptism. Jesus did not have his own guilt. But Jesus was fully human and the heavens opening and the immersion in the River Jordan were a powerful physical reminder of the inward and spiritual grace.

Jesus baptism gave him the positive assurances that he would need during his temptation and time of ministry, suffering, and death. So our baptisms give us the assurance that we are children of God. I can say with Martin Luther when feelings of guilt intrude, "I am baptized."

But the tragedy is that most of us do not remember our baptism. I was actually baptized in a river when I was 18 years old. I was terrified because I don’t swim and the water was brown. You have heard me pray for my friend Jack who has been dealing with diabetes and weight. Well, Jack was heavy then and when the pastor baptized him in the river, he dropped him. So the pastor is frantically feeling around in the river, trying to find him, when Jack finds his footing and shoots up from the water. He never forgot that baptism.

Our cure to guilt is to die with Christ and then let Jesus raise us like a lifeguard. Baptism is the picture of that for us to remember. The only problem I see with infant baptism is that a spoonful of water will at 6 months does not give the imagery you need in adult life to remember why we can claim the peace of God.

The remembrance of baptism and that symbol should be a greater part of our worship. We don’t come to worship this morning because we are fairly decent people. We don’t come this morning for a calming mental and emotional exercise. We come this morning because we were lost in guilt and God supernaturally came to rescue us. We have no hand in the rescue other than to accept it. We agree to the baptism and in the waters of death with Christ, we accept the hand of Jesus the lifeguard raising us to a new wonderful life with Christ.

And then when we sin, or when we hit a planter, we feel the water once again and remember our baptism and the reason that a Christian can escape the guilt and save all their energy for life. And that is worship.